@Needmoresleep.
To copy your point system:
- Thanks for explaining 'narrowly' isn't a scientific term.
- Your explanation of what you mean by narrowly is evidence of the point I was trying to make earlier: you may think your DS would have thrived and would have got a place on a different day, but you don't know you can only presume. You may be wrong. I imagine you weren't in the interview room (although I also imagine there are some MN posters who absolutely would be if they could...)
For all you know, your DS could have come across as wooden. He may have come across as two-dimensional in his knowledge so great on paper and at doing well in exams but very mediocre in person and someone who couldn't think for themselves on the spot. He may have come across as uncharismatic or as if he couldn't be bothered. He may have come across as having such a sense of entitlement about deserving to be at Cambridge/Oxford that he thought it was a dead cert and hadn't bothered to research the college or university or course very much. He may have come across as someone who wanted to be at Oxbridge so he and his mother had bragging rights but who really didn't appreciate the other benefits of Oxbridge beyond it's international reputation, and would be equally happy at another institution that was high-ranking regardless of what it was like.
My suggestions are as equally valid for why a candidate doesn't get an offer as are the suggestions you gave. You will never know, and rationalising it in a rather irrational way by 'blaming' it on other factors rather than on anything to do with your DS is IMO not in a DC's best interests.
Of course those other factors are relevant in some cases - again, for anyone who was pooled, which I don't think your DS was as I think you would have said so if that was the case. Nor am I saying you need to blame it on a DC, only that recognising they also have some agency in how things go, and at times others will simply be or seem to be better, is a vital lesson in resilience.
- I find your details about the backgrounds and attainment of SO MANY your DC's UNIVERSITY friends' and their PARENTS both (a) condescending when it's about their poor English and working class backgrounds, (b) creepy and (c) not necessarily a good reflection on you or your DC. It suggests that where someone comes from and the grades and status they achieve is of major interest in your household and a source of comparison.
- I was actually taking the piss out of Cinammon's use of "butt-hurt". I think that passed you by.
- It's telling that while you go into so much detail about why people at LSE are unlikely to be "butt-hurt", you don't refute Cinammon's claim that there are Oxbridge rejects at Durham who are "butt-hurt" or argue that it's not second-best. But LSE is absolutely not second-best, got it. And yes it is v different so perhaps can't compare. Whether it's objectively second best or not is somewhat irrelevant. It would be interesting to know how many students if offered both LSE and Oxford/Cambridge, chose LSE. For many students applying to Oxbridge, it IS their first choice, aka 'the best'.
- Going somewhere else and doing well doesn't mean that the rejection from Oxbridge is 'a positive'. It means that students have lots of different great and exciting options and will do well in many different places. You judge doing well as getting a PHD in America. I judge it as coming out with a good degree result having worked hard AND having had a great time, made friends, grown emotionally, coped with the responsibilities of adulthood and being able to juggle a work -life balance. Just because someone does well at LSE or elsewhere, doesn't mean they won't have done well at Oxbridge or enjoyed it there.
Many of the DC on here, being academically strong enough and sounding emotionally mature and with other interests, are highly likely to have a great time and do well at most of the universities that are in the top 20 for their course. They may be glad in time of not having gone to Oxbridge because they wouldn't have met certain people or had certain experiences, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't have also really enjoyed Oxbridge had they got in. Those two statements can co-exist.